Northwest journal.

Stray Cats And Dogs Can Find Their Own Buddy In Arlington Heights

April 09, 1995|By Christine Winter.

The ultimate goal among those who run animal shelters is an empty shelter:

All the dogs romping in their own backyards, all the cats curled on their own windowsills, all the cage doors at the shelter standing open. But it just never seems to work out that way, and in fact, the need is so great that few shelters can keep up with the demand.

With Palatine's Sav-A-Pet planning to move to the Grayslake area soon, a group of northwest suburban animal lovers has decided to start a new no-kill shelter in Arlington Heights.

It's called The Buddy Foundation, and even though it's just getting off the ground, its founders already have taken in a stray cat that just gave birth to four kittens.

Some of the board members of the new organization-including a judge, lawyers, several veterinarians, a vet technician and a Palatine village trustee-have been taking in stray animals on their own for years.

Ellaine Kiriluck, a speech and language pathologist who is president of the new shelter, owns two dogs of unknown origin that she found along roadsides, one in the Arizona desert, the other on Arlington Heights Road during a rainstorm.

Jan Bierman of Arlington Heights, the other guiding spirit behind The Buddy Foundation, acknowledges she is well-known among her circle of friends and colleagues as an animal lover-and a softie, when it comes to homeless pets.

"People are always coming up to me and saying, `Can you take this?' or, `What do you have around now, I'm looking for . . .' So we figured it was time to get organized," she said. The group has been incorporated as a non-profit agency for one month.

The Buddy Foundation will start out placing animals in foster homes, while it tries to find permanent homes for them.

But Kiriluck and Bierman dream of setting up an actual shelter to house animals looking for homes in the Arlington Heights area and of promoting such causes as the need to spay and neuter pets.

"All we really need is for somebody to donate five acres of land for the shelter, but we haven't quite found that person yet," Kiriluck said with a laugh.

"Someday we hope to have a great foundation here, but the main thing right now is getting animals out the door quickly and into good homes," Bierman said.

And even though they hope to build a shelter eventually, Bierman doesn't like the idea of dogs crammed into cages all day. "Let's face it, a dog belongs on a sofa someplace, not in a small cage surrounded by other unhappy dogs," she said.

The Buddy Foundation, named in memory of a beloved collie that once belonged to Bierman, needs a lot of things. But organizers decided not to wait for the organizational strings to come attached before finding homes-both temporary and permanent-for the strays that already have started coming their way.

"You could spend 10 years raising funds and building facilities, but in the meantime, you aren't helping any animals," Bierman said, "so we decided to jump right in."

The Buddy Foundation, which can be reached at P.O. Box 334, Arlington Heights, Ill., 60006-0334 or 708-390-1872, will hold its first-ever fundraiser called "The Buddy Blast Off" at 5 to 8 p.m. April 27 in Dumas Walkers, 1799 S. Busse Rd., Mt. Prospect. Tickets are $20.

Board members say that money and land aren't the only things they need. They also are looking for advice, tips, volunteers and foster homes and would like to develop a list of breed rescue groups working in the northwest suburbs.

Scholarship time: The Women's Organization of Friendship Village is opening its treasury once again to help part-time employees finish their schooling.

The group, which is made up of residents of Friendship Village in Schaumburg, will be awarding 10 scholarships of $1,500 each to part-time employees who work in the dining rooms and health-care center at Friendship Village.

The women's group raises the money for the scholarships through its gift shop, weekly rummage sales and an annual bazaar, said scholarship chairwoman Louise Eckburg.

The ceremony, traditionally a very emotional event, will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in Friendship Hall of Friendship Village.

Sidewalk stars: Here's a chance to get your name underfoot. The Central Road School PTA in Rolling Meadows is selling paver bricks to raise money for new playground equipment.

The bricks, which will cost from $30 for a three-line "family brick" to $200 for a six-line "corporate brick," will become part of the courtyard near the main entrance of the new school building at 3800 W. Central Rd. The school is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 1996. Call 708-991-3635.